


The Great First Feast

by wynnebat



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, Historical Inaccuracy, Hogwarts Founders Era, Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-14
Updated: 2012-01-14
Packaged: 2018-02-03 08:48:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1738505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wynnebat/pseuds/wynnebat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One day, songs will be sung far and wide about the first end of year feast at Hogwarts. But not for at least two hundred years, when all attendants are dead and cannot contest the details of these songs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Great First Feast

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [The Point of View in a Week Challenge](https://www.fanfiction.net/topic/44309/55303021/1/).

**Salazar Slytherin**

"I await to see each and every one of you next year," Rowena said with a smile, the diadem on her head making the image even more beautiful. "Now, if you would all—"

She was interrupted by a boy no more than twelve years of age, who had swung open the doors of the Great Hall and ran through.

"By Merlin, Sir Gryffindor, there's a muggle in the Black Lake!" yelled Toby the page boy, ignoring everyone else and seeing only his mentor. He was a young man of bad breeding and practically muggle, Salazar thought with a sniff. Uncultured, unclean, and unbecoming.

Salazar snorted, audibly and loudly enough for the idiot boy to hear. "Well? Ask the Giant Squid to release it back into the wild. If it doesn't, it's no problem of ours."

"But..." The boy looked visibly distraught, and Salazar made a mental appointment to whip him for his offences. Really, Godric let him be too lax.

Rowena looked towards Salazar. "There's a muggle in the Black Lake? How many times do I have to tell you to fix the problem, Salazar?"

"It's not my fault there's a muggle in the lake! Just because I have superior intellect does not mean I can devise a way to keep all muggles out of Hogwarts! If I had skills like those, I would keep muggles off this entire godforsaken land!" He turned to Godric. "You're the muggle lover, go fish it out!"

Godric stroked his chin, thinking, and Salazar wished that for once he'd quit his useless preaching and let some muggles die.

Then, as if coming to a realization, Godric jumped up, brandishing his sword upwards. Salazar hoped he'd stab someone, but it seemed that just wasn't to be. "It must be the beautiful maiden I'm destined to save and fall in love with! Onwards, comrades!"

The teachers of the school stared at him as he ran out of the Hall.

"Hasn't he caught on to the fact that Lady Cassandra's been orchestrating scenes for him to save her since age nine?" Rowena questioned, cutting her poultry dish. "And that her prophesy's an utter fake?"

"You mean, hasn't Godric caught on to the fact that us poor humans are actually able and willing to lie?" Salazar asked with a huff, sipping his wine.

Rowena grimaced. "Point made."

"Good luck, Godric!" Helga yelled from the far end of the staff table.

After half a bell, Salazar saw Godric stumble back, dejected and bemoaning fate. "Why couldn't it have been a beautiful maiden?" he grumbled, stabbing his now-cold dinner. The staff table's occupants hadn't seen fit to do him the favor of a warming charm if he was going to behave like a love-stricken teenager.

Helga, who had come closer to sample the cook's marvelous fish, slapped Godric on the shoulder, grinning at his wince. "There're other fish in the sea, Godric. Chin up."

"So," Rowena began, smiling craftily, "how's the construction of your room going, Salazar? You know, what you're doing when you're not coming up with wards for the good of Hogwarts for years to come."

Salazar glowered at her, already calling up the wards to make Rowena unable to find her room tonight. Rowena smiled at him in a way that made him wonder if she had taken up warding in her own spare time. Though he suspected her free time was limited to sleeping hours, as she spent the rest of it either teaching or pretending to be an all-powerful Seer. That diadem of hers needed to be destroyed, or at least handed over to Salazar.

"I," Salazar began, lifting his nose at the piece of common trash Godric was now speaking to, "am building the best room in the entire castle. In fact, I have nearly finished it. It will be known to select generations to come as the All-Seeing Room; with only a thought it becomes a room suited for whatever the seeker desires."

"Yeah?" Godric asked, leaning back in his chair. "Are you going to use it for romantic fantasy scenes with your wife? Oh wait, I forgot, she left you."

"Jealous that I can do real magic and you cannot, Godric? Or that a respected woman saw fit to marry me at all, unlike you and your low-class courtesans," Salazar retorted, sneering.

"Feh. I'll create a room twice as grand and powerful as yours, just you watch. In fact, I'll call it the All-Knowing Room. It will be able to accurately show anything at all happening at that very moment." He stared up at the blank ceiling of the Great Hall. "And its ceiling will always show the sky above."

"Preposterous," Salazar grumbled.

Helga gave out a hearty laugh. "He will, and you know it. He'd never broken a promise so far."

Salazar just scowled at Helga and the rest of the table.

 

**Godric Gryffindor**

"Well, my boy?" Godric yelled, running to the Black Lake. "How does she look? Is she beautiful? Is she as amazing as the night sky? Does she, perchance, already know of Godric the Great?"

"No one calls you that, sir," Toby muttered, running after his lord. Then louder, he continued, "and it's not a maiden..."

Godric stopped abruptly, barely feeling Toby run into his back. "It's not a maiden? It's... a hag?" he whispered, dejected.

"No, it's just not a she altogether..."

Godric sighed and started walking slowly towards the Black Lake, pulling Toby along. Salazar would never let him live this down, and as Godric couldn't keep a secret even to save his pride, Salazar would no doubt find out this very evening. He ruffled Toby's hair and belatedly unhanded him.

"Why didn't you tell me? I wouldn't have been angry."

Toby turned his head down in shame. "I'm sorry, sir, but you'd already run outside. I know I should have been faster and I'm unworthy to even apologize, but know I never meant to deceive you."

"Chin up. You've been listening to Salazar too often. You should know by now that he looks down on everyone except his children and Helga." Including me, he added mentally. Salazar was his closest friend, but sometimes Godric wondered if Salazar even realized the depth of Godric's feelings for him. Ever since Salazar saved him from the clutches of evil Lord Zyndegar, Godric had thought of Salazar as his own brother. And no matter how many years had went by and will go by, Godric knew he'd always care for Salazar. And, to almost the same extent, Helga and Rowena. They were his family.

As they meandered to the Black Lake, Godric stared at his beautiful familiar. She was all he'd ever wanted in a life companion: beautiful, dangerous, and adventurous. A little too adventurous, he amended, calling out to his beauty.

"Nesta, dear, could you please unhand the muggle?" he asked in his sweetest voice.

One of Nesta's tentacles reached out to slick down Godric's wind-swept hair, but otherwise she looked uninterested in his request. Godric scowled and crossed his arms. Nessie, as he affectionately called her, rubbed his cheek with her tentacle and went back to playing with her muggle.

"Sir? Shouldn't we stop it?"

"Nessie is no it, Toby. Go find Salazar tomorrow and tell him you called my baby an it again. He'll think of a suitable punishment." Although he cared very much for Toby, sometimes even Godric wondered if his charge was a little bit slow.

"Good sir!" Godric yelled, cupping his hands around his mouth. "Are you in need of saving?"

"Are you mad? Kill the beast and get me out ooooof heeeereee!" His screams distorted the last part of his sentence, but Godric felt he understood the gist of it.

Cupping Toby's shoulder, Godric leaned down to teach him a life lesson. "Now, many times in life, you will have to do things you don't want to do. The best outcome occurs when you grit your teeth and just do it. Like now, perhaps this man has a beautiful sister or daughter hiding nearby, waiting for a gallant savior to rescue this man."

When Toby nodded hesitantly, Godric knew Toby didn't completely understand his lesson, but he assured himself that Toby was a little young to understand matters of the heart.

Not that that had ever stopped Godric in his younger years.

Godric disposed of his weapons and overclothes into Toby's waiting arms, then without further ado, waded into the lake.

"Nessie dear, I'm coming in! If you don't unhand it—him—right now, I'll call Helga in, and you know she doesn't like you!"

To his despair, Nessie only tapped his head lovingly and decided to switch from throwing the muggle up and down in the air to dunking him in and out of the water.

He swam leftwards and rightwards, avoiding Nessie's adorable tentacles, until he was almost at the spot where Nessie was dunking the muggle. Then, he breathed in deeply and propelled himself underwater.

Then muggle accidentally kicked Godric's shoulder, and Godric struggled to feel his usual goodwill towards muggles.

As the muggle was gurgling for breath and about to pass out, Godric valiantly got him out of Nessie's two main tentacles and pulled him towards the shore. He patted Nessie in apology and promised himself he'd get her a nice cow to play with tomorrow.

He handed the muggle over to Toby when he reached the shore and cast a few quick drying spells over himself. Then, he cast a few charms on the muggle, who looked like he needed them more.

"Hello, good sir! I am Godric the Great. And you are?"

The man gaped at him, wide eyed. "That was a monster! It tried to eat me and you're not even going to kill it?"

Godric rubbed his temples, deciding not to bother explaining the wonderful creature that was Nessie to this muggle. He'd tried it many times, but so far no one, including his own family, understood how amazing Nessie was. Although, she and Salazar seemed to have reached a truce in the past half-year. Godric had noticed she no longer tried to pick Salazar up whenever they took their walks around the lake, but he had no idea what Salazar's end of the bargain included.

He looked the man over and decided that even if the muggle had any daughters or sisters, they probably had this man's looks as well, and all this effort wasn't worth much on a holiday.

"No, I'm not going to kill her." He turned to Tobias. "Get him out of here. I'm going back to the feast."

After all, Godric had a story to tell Helga.

 

**Toby the Page**

Toby sighed, kicking the dirt next to his foot. It wasn't fair that as a lower level apprentice, he wasn't allowed to attend the biggest event of the year, the first leaving feast. For a moment, he'd thought Sir Gryffindor might bring him back to the Great Hall with him, but apparently that wasn't the case. He stared at Sir Gryffindor's retreating form, then looked over at the muggle.

It smelled a little, even after that Merlin-damned squid had dunked it in water a few dozen times. He wondered it Lord Slytherin's opinions were true, that muggles really were descended from smelly monkeys. But then, than would mean that, as a muggleborn, Toby himself was descended from monkeys, and he really didn't want to think about that.

"What am I supposed to do with you?" he asked, mostly to himself, while looking the muggle over.

The last time a muggle had gotten into the Black Lake, he'd had to save it himself, and he'd just brought it to Lord Slytherin. He couldn't do it this time; Lord Slytherin would behead him if Toby interrupted the First Great Feast again.

As of about six months ago, muggles had been getting into the Black Lake weekly, and no one had been able to find the cause. Even Lord Slytherin, who researched for months, had been unable to find the hole in the wards.

Shaking out of his thoughts, Toby realized the muggle was getting ready to run. With a quick spell, the muggle was motionless, and Toby quickly reordered its memories to make the day seem like a dream. He only hoped his memory charm worked, or Lord Slytherin would set him on fire. By accident. Again.

Then he transported the muggle to a loch north of Hogwarts and left him on a deck. That done, he teleported back to Hogwarts and sat on a tree stump near the lake, staring at the lake.

He scowled at Nessie, who waved at him and flicked some water into his eyes. He wasn't jealous, of course, but he hated that stupid Nessie the Giant Squid got more attention from Sir Gryffindor than Toby ever did. If Giant Squids could look smug, he knew Nessie be smug all the time. After all, Sir Gryffindor loved her very much. Toby pouted.

"Hey! Kid!"

Toby got up and turned around. "Yes, m'am?" he asked to the girl running towards him.

"You're Godric's brat, right?" she asked, looking pleadingly at him.

"Yes m'am," he mumbled, trying not to stare. He was really talking to the beautiful Helena Ravenclaw!

"Right, I'd like you to stay here. Hopefully for the next hour, and if anyone comes looking for me, I want you to tell them I went to that muggle village nearby, Hogsmeade or whatever. Can you do that for me?"

Toby lost himself in her smile, but still attempted to pull himself together. "Yes m'am," he crowed, "anything for you."

He knew he'd done something wrong when Lady Helena walked away, grumbling about "stupid, slow apprentices," but he didn't care. He'd really spoken to Lady Helena!

This was the greatest day of his life, even if he hadn't been able to go to the feast.

 

**Helena Ravenclaw**

Now that she'd gotten Godric's idiot to corroborate her story, Helena set out for her mother's rooms. All she needed to do was find her mother's diadem, and she'd finally know how to drive all her pesky suitors away. Mother had left her diadem in her tower for once, not wanting to damage it during the rowdy feast, so Helena knew it was her one chance to use it for herself. She'd slipped out of the feast of the decade for this, but she knew it would be worth it.

She looked both ways before tiptoeing through one of Hogwarts' side entrances, hoping everyone who knew her was either at the feast or moping in their rooms about not being allowed to attend the feast.

"Helena! You're becoming more beautiful by the day!" The person she had needed to see least announced, wrapping an arm around her shoulders.

"Sir Gryffindor." She fluidly slid out from his grasp and stepped a half a meter away. "Beautiful day it is outside. I was just, ah, going to my rooms to freshen up for my trip to Hogsmeade."

"Yes, beautiful," he mumbled, stroking his big red beard. "Hogsmeade does have the best mead. I had planned to go there myself soon."

Helena cursed her own attractiveness. "I'm only fifteen, in case you were wondering," she deadpanned. "And your almost-sister's daughter. Practically your niece."

"Fifteen is a wonderful age," Godric said, grinning, but saluted her anyway and went off, probably to bother Salazar. Helena heaved a sigh of relief.

Painstakingly making her way up to her mother's tower, Helena made sure no one would see her this time. She'd pulled out her best spells: invisibility, soundlessness, illusions.

She was just three meters away from the entrance into her mother's tower when she heard voices nearby. She flattened herself to the wall just in case, not daring to turn the corner.

"Your squid is a menace! Just because I have my Cassie doesn't mean you needed to one-up me in the size of our familiars!"

"Nessie is absolutely charming! She wouldn't hurt a fly!"

"Yes, unlike your nuisance of an apprentice! If you don't whip your muggleborn whelp for his impudence, I'll quit the castle! Permanently!"

"If you lived up to your promises as often as you made them, you'd be in France by now!"

If she had been less intent on her mission, Helena would have groaned. Of all the places in the castle, why had Godric and Salazar chosen to argue outside the only entrance to her mother's rooms?

"Maybe I should! Maybe I'll leave and go to France. I'd be back home at any rate. I could visit my sister and my niece, who I've not even seen yet."

"Your place is here, at the castle. You love teaching and you know it. And you hate your sister."

Salazar said something she couldn't make out, but she definitely heard Godric's reply. The whole castle might have heard Godric's reply.

"I'm here, you stubborn oaf of a man!" Then, quieter: "Helga and Rowena, too. We all love and care for you. You'd be stupid to leave."

Unable to resist, Helena peeked out of her alcove and saw Godric and Salazar embrace one another. From her spot, she could only see Godric's face, but she saw it light up in a face-splitting grin when Salazar whispered something in his ear.

"Back to the feast, good friend!" Godric yelled, raising his sword for some reason.

Salazar smacked him over the head. Helena thought that at forty-something, they were both too old to act as teenagers, but it wasn't really her place to say anything. Especially when she was supposed to be hiding.

As their voices quieted to nothing, Helena slipped into her mother's quarters. She passed one of Salazar's annoying students on the way, and wondered why he was holding a scroll and an inked quill, but shook the thought out of her head.

" _Ricardium revelio_ ," she whispered to the portrait of a half snoozing, very fat lady, and the portrait swung open.

Helena shook off her spells and ran up the stairs to her mother's bedroom. There, on the dressing table, would be the diadem.

Or it should be, she thought glumly, staring at the note in its place.

_My dear daughter,_

_I've decided to wear my diadem to the Great Feast. Where would Rowena the Wise be without the her Diadem of Knowing?_

_Love,_

_Mother_

_No one calls you that!_ she wanted to scream to her mother. Sometimes, she truly despised her. When she stepped out of the tower and found bloody Baron Drury outside it, ready to knock on the portrait, she almost screamed in frustration.

"Lady Helena!" he cried, and Helena had to wonder if she'd been cursed with bad luck today.

 

**Baron Drury, the Not-Yet-Bloody Baron**

Baron Drury almost cried with joy when he saw Lady Helena step out of Lady Ravenclaw's tower. It was his lucky day! When he'd followed her out of the Great Feast, he'd first looked outside near the lake, where she spent many hours writing poetry with Nessie. There, he'd asked Sir Gryffindor's idiot charge, Toby, where the beautiful Lady Helena might be.

"She said she went to Hogsmeade," the boy had answered with an absentminded smile. "Lady Helena spoke to me!"

Baron Drury stepped forward, affronted. "Now, look here, boy, the amazing Lady Helena would never stoop so low as to speak to you!"

"But she did!" the boy cried, jumping off his tree stump. "She did! Then she followed Sir Gryffindor back to Hogwarts!"

Baron Drury raised an eyebrow. "She did, did she?" He left the idiot on his stump and left for the castle. His angel was so smart, trying to avoid her many suitors this way. But no matter, Baron Drury would search every corner of the castle to find her!

Admittedly, Lady Rowena's rooms were the sixteenth place he'd looked, but only because Lady Helena and her mother didn't get on well. But when his angel stepped out of the tower, he knew a benevolent god had smiled on him today.

After greeting her, he graced his beloved with his most pleasing smile, and waited for her to speak.

"Baron Dreary," she said, after a pause, and with a strange look on her face.

"Baron Drury," the Baron corrected. "How are you, my darling Lady Helena? Would you be interested in an escort to the Great Feast?"

Lady Helena nodded, and Baron Drury was once again assured that his beloved loved him back. It wouldn't be proper for her to speak of her love, of course, but he knew that once they'd marry, she would spend hours writing love poetry for him. And him alone, the Baron thought, glowering at the mental image of Lady Helena's various suitors. Many of them were more handsome or richer than he, but he'd win out in the end.

One way or another.

And so he escorted Lady Helena to the Great Feast, smiling all the while.

He didn't think much of the way Lady Rowena smiled knowingly at her daughter, but Lady Helena must have, as she glared at the top of mother's head.

 

**Saer Diggory, the Forgotten Apprentice**

Saer, hidden in a convenient alcove, pulled out his trusty quill. As a senior apprentice, he'd been welcome to attend the feast, but his instincts had told him to wait near Lady Rowena's tower instead. He'd waited for a long while, but his patience had been worth it in the end: he finally had inspiration for his ballad!

He'd been writing his songs for ages, hoping that they'd be approved as the official record of the first year of Hogwarts, but just this morning Lady Hufflepuff had deemed them too embellished to be official.

Saef huffed, writing madly. He'd show them! His uncle had a muggle bard visit him occasionally for entertainment, and the bard was always searching for new material. All Saer needed to do was slip him the parchment and a few coins, and the bard would tell Saer's history ballads to the entire country!

Of course, that would mean Saer would have to change the songs a little, cutting out all the magic. Saer stared down at his now finished lyrics. They were beautiful just as they were, and his heart ached at the thought of leaving out some of the best rhymes. Perhaps he could try again, this time with Lady Ravenclaw, to get them officially published? He knew the stories were a little different from reality, but he'd needed them to rhyme. Surely the Founders would see it that way.

"What are you doing here?"

Saer looked up to see Lady Trelawney, one of the two Arithmancy teachers at Hogwarts. "I'm writing my ballads, m'am."

"Ballads? The ones Helga was just telling me about?"

Saer blushed horribly, hoping Lady Hufflepuff hadn't said anything bad about them. His reputation would be ruined! "Yes m'am."

"She said they were very nice, if unsuitable. May I read them sometime? I know a wizarding bard that's interested in new material."

"Really?" Saer exclaimed, jumping up. Lady Trelawney stepped back, and Saer cursed himself for being over-excited, but he really couldn't control his excitement. "That would be wonderful, my lady!" Then his mood darkened a bit as he remembered Lady Hufflepuff's criticism. "But, you should know, I'm still only an amateur poet. My rhymes are only as good as my memory, which fails me at certain times."

He didn't like the way Lady Trelawney smiled at him. "That is quite alright, child. Memory failure happens to the best of us. If I could see your ballads?"

He handed her the scroll of parchment. "They're complete. I just need to publish them."

He watched as she read them, smiling to herself in that odd way.

"Marvelous ballads. I think I shall recommend them to my friend," she announced.

Saer nervously watched her walk away, happy and nervous at the same time. But, he decided to go back to the Great Hall and wash away his nervousness with some good wine. After all, Cassandra Trelawney was a reputable woman, and a rumored Seer. His ballads were safe with her.

 

**Cassandra Trelawney, the First Cassandra**

Cassandra angrily sat down next to Lady Helga, who was on the far side of the staff table. Her former seat had been taken by Lady Helena, who had the gall to usurp her spot next four seats away from Godric. She'd left to check on her son, who she had left in the care of Edith, a too-pretty young girl she cared for very little. She'd chosen the girl in hope that Godric might be attracted to her, then become enchanted with the infant the girl cared for, but alas, it wasn't to be. She'd heard rumors that he was interested in children, but at his age and still unmarried, she felt he'd never have any of his own, whether with her or not.

"Cassandra," Helga said, nodding and turning away.

Cassandra scowled at Lady Helga, at Godric, who sat too far away with a little chit half his age, and at all the teachers that sat between Cassandra and her beloved. Was a seat next to Godric too much to ask for? She was so close yet so far, and all she could do was stare at her beloved and wish he'd take notice of her for once.

Although, if he wasn't close to her in reality, he could always be near her in fiction, she thought opening the scroll of ballads. Near the end, she noticed the lyrics spoke of Salazar and Godric having a fight and making up, becoming closer than ever before.

Well, that just won't do, Cassandra thought, taking out a quill.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!
> 
> Complete; no sequel planned.


End file.
